How Do Central Banks Talk?

How Do Central Banks Talk?
Author: Alan S. Blinder
Publisher: Centre for Economic Policy Research
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781898128601

Not long ago, secrecy was the byword in central banking circles, but now the unmistakable trend is towards greater openness and transparency. This, the third Geneva Report on the World Economy, describes and evaluates some of the changes in how central banks talk to the markets, to the press, and to the public. The report first assesses the case for transparency ? defined as providing sufficient information for the public to understand the policy regime ? and concludes that it is very strong, based on both policy effectiveness and democratic accountability. It then examines what should be the content of communication and argues that central banks ought to spell out their long-run objectives and methods. It then investigates the link between the decision-making process and central bank communication, drawing a distinction between individualistic and collegial committees. The report concludes with a review of the communications strategies of some of the main central banks.

Collusion

Collusion
Author: Nomi Prins
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1568585632

In this searing exposéformer Wall Street insider Nomi Prins shows how the 2007-2008 financial crisis turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Central banks and international institutions like the IMF have overstepped their traditional mandates by directing the flow of epic sums of fabricated money without any checks or balances. Meanwhile, the open door between private and central banking has ensured endless opportunities for market manipulation and asset bubbles -- with government support. Through on-the-ground reporting, Prins reveals how five regions and their central banks reshaped economics and geopolitics. She discloses how Mexico navigated its relationship with the US while striving for independence and how Brazil led the BRICS countries to challenge the US dollar's hegemony. She explains how China's retaliation against the Fed's supremacy is aiding its ongoing ascent as a global superpower and how Japan is negotiating the power shift from the West to the East. And she illustrates how the European response to the financial crisis fueled instability that manifests itself in everything from rising populism to the shocking Brexit vote. Packed with tantalizing details about the elite players orchestrating the world economy -- from Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi to Ben Bernanke and Christine Lagarde -- Collusion takes the reader inside the most discreet conversations at exclusive retreats like Jackson Hole and Davos. A work of meticulous reporting and bracing analysis, Collusion will change the way we understand the new world of international finance.

Princes of the Yen

Princes of the Yen
Author: Richard Werner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2015-03-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 131746219X

This eye-opening book offers a disturbing new look at Japan's post-war economy and the key factors that shaped it. It gives special emphasis to the 1980s and 1990s when Japan's economy experienced vast swings in activity. According to the author, the most recent upheaval in the Japanese economy is the result of the policies of a central bank less concerned with stimulating the economy than with its own turf battles and its ideological agenda to change Japan's economic structure. The book combines new historical research with an in-depth behind-the-scenes account of the bureaucratic competition between Japan's most important institutions: the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan. Drawing on new economic data and first-hand eyewitness accounts, it reveals little known monetary policy tools at the core of Japan's business cycle, identifies the key figures behind Japan's economy, and discusses their agenda. The book also highlights the implications for the rest of the world, and raises important questions about the concentration of power within central banks.

The Only Game in Town

The Only Game in Town
Author: Mohamed A. El-Erian
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0812997638

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A roadmap to what lies ahead and the decisions we must make now to stave off the next global economic and financial crisis, from one of the world’s most influential economic thinkers and the author of When Markets Collide • Updated, with a new chapter and author’s note “The one economic book you must read now . . . If you want to understand [our] bifurcated world and where it’s headed, there is no better interpreter than Mohamed El-Erian.”—Time Our current economic path is coming to an end. The signposts are all around us: sluggish growth, rising inequality, stubbornly high pockets of unemployment, and jittery financial markets, to name a few. Soon we will reach a fork in the road: One path leads to renewed growth, prosperity, and financial stability, the other to recession and market disorder. In The Only Game in Town, El-Erian casts his gaze toward the future of the global economy and markets, outlining the choices we face both individually and collectively in an era of economic uncertainty and financial insecurity. Beginning with their response to the 2008 global crisis, El-Erian explains how and why our central banks became the critical policy actors—and, most important, why they cannot continue is this role alone. They saved the financial system from collapse in 2008 and a multiyear economic depression, but lack the tools to enable a return to high inclusive growth and durable financial stability. The time has come for a policy handoff, from a prolonged period of monetary policy experimentation to a strategy that better targets what ails economies and distorts the financial sector—before we stumble into another crisis. The future, critically, is not predestined. It is up to us to decide where we will go from here as households, investors, companies, and governments. Using a mix of insights from economics, finance, and behavioral science, this book gives us the tools we need to properly understand this turning point, prepare for it, and come out of it stronger. A comprehensive, controversial look at the realities of our global economy and markets, The Only Game in Town is required reading for investors, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future.

Unelected Power

Unelected Power
Author: Paul Tucker
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 662
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691196303

Tucker presents guiding principles for ensuring that central bankers and other unelected policymakers remain stewards of the common good.

The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions

The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions
Author: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002
Genre: Banks and Banking
ISBN: 9780894991967

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

Inflation Expectations

Inflation Expectations
Author: Peter J. N. Sinclair
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2009-12-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1135179778

Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Do Central Banks Serve the People?

Do Central Banks Serve the People?
Author: Peter Dietsch
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2018-08-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509525807

Central banks have become the go-to institution of modern economies. In the wake of the 2007 financial crisis, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity – through a process known as quantitative easing – first to prevent financial meltdown and later to stimulate the economy. The untold story behind these measures, and behind the changing roles of central banks generally, is that they have come at a considerable cost. Central banks argue we had no choice. This book offers a powerfully original examination of why this claim is false. Using examples from Europe and the US, the authors present and analyse three specific concerns about the way central banks in developed economies operate today. Firstly, they show how unconventional monetary policies have created significant unintended negative consequences in terms of inequalities in income and wealth. They go on to argue that central banks may have become independent of governments, but have instead become worryingly dependent on financial markets. They then proceed to analyse how central bankers, despite being the undisputed experts on monetary policy, can still err and suffer from multiple forms of bias. This book is a sobering and urgent wake-up call for policy-makers and anyone interested in how our monetary and financial system really works.

Central Bank Balances and Reserve Requirements

Central Bank Balances and Reserve Requirements
Author: Mr.Simon Gray
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 57
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1455217905

Most central banks oblige depository institutions to hold minimum reserves against their liabilities, predominantly in the form of balances at the central bank. The role of these reserve requirements has evolved significantly over time. The overlay of changing purposes and practices has the result that it is not always fully clear what the current purpose of reserve requirements is, and this necessarily complicates thinking about how a reserve regime should be structured. This paper describes three main purposes for reserve requirements - prudential, monetary control and liquidity management - and suggests best practice for the structure of a reserves regime. Finally, the paper illustrates current practices using a 2010 IMF survey of 121 central banks.

Economy of Words

Economy of Words
Author: Douglas R. Holmes
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2013-12-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022608776X

Markets are artifacts of language—so Douglas R. Holmes argues in this deeply researched look at central banks and the people who run them. Working at the intersection of anthropology, linguistics, and economics, he shows how central bankers have been engaging in communicative experiments that predate the financial crisis and continue to be refined amid its unfolding turmoil—experiments that do not merely describe the economy, but actually create its distinctive features. Holmes examines the New York District Branch of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, and the Bank of England, among others, and shows how officials there have created a new monetary regime that relies on collaboration with the public to achieve the ends of monetary policy. Central bankers, Holmes argues, have shifted the conceptual anchor of monetary affairs away from standards such as gold or fixed exchange rates and toward an evolving relationship with the public, one rooted in sentiments and expectations. Going behind closed doors to reveal the intellectual world of central banks,Economy of Words offers provocative new insights into the way our economic circumstances are conceptualized and ultimately managed.